A. S. B. Ebenhaëzer (Ebenezer in English) was
registered in 1904 having been built in the Croles shipyard in IJlst, (just
outside Sneek, Friesland) in the Netherlands.Now an auxiliary sailing barge
she is a 63ft (inc. fixed bow sprit) gaff sloop rigged, sailing barge
(tjalk).She was registered for
‘Binnenvaart’, or inland trade.She was purchased by her current owners as
Geertruida in 1992 in Friesland, though she had also previously been re-named Butsekop
and Vrouwe Harmke.Her documentation was located in 2002 and it was
discovered that Geertruida was not her original/correct name.Consequently, she was ceremoniously
'de-named' to her true name of Ebenhaëzer (Ebenezer), by which she had been
known for most of her life.It's stated
that her use was transporting bulk cargo, mainly in Friesland (a northern
province of Holland).

Around 1900 there were as many as thirty different types
of tjalken in the Netherlands, all of them being built and equipped for very
specific kinds of transport routes and waterways.“Ebenhaëzer” is a specimen of a Frisian tjalk of the largest
category: 15 to 20 meters long and used for the transport of bulk cargo.The smaller type was 10-12 meters long and
primarily used for the transport of mixed cargo in small quantities on a
regular basis, mostly once a week, between the villages and market towns.

Map Showing the
Region in whichEbenhaëzer Operated and
was Built.

It also Shows Leeuwarden, where her Current
Owner Purchased Her

Her current owner
first viewed her in 1992 in Leeuwarden, the capital town of Friesland.She was then sailed via Belgium & France
to berth on the Thames in early 1993. Several years later, she was sailed on to Ireland from the East
coast of England starting from Maldon on the River Blackwater (Essex), via the
Thames, Kennet & Avon Canal, River Avon, Bristol Channel, Welsh coast
(Milford Haven), St Georges Channel, Dunmore East (Waterford – SE Coast of
Ireland), Barrow, Grand Canal, arriving on the River Shannon in 2000, where she
is currently based.

Ebenhaëzer
Approaching Big Ben & Houses of Parliament, London in 1999

The ship was registered in 1904 as “Ebenhaëzer” (Ebenezer
in English) .The name Ebenhaëzer
(meaning “Stone of Help”) is of hebrew origin and was derived from the Holy
Bible, paying tribute to a stone which Samuel used as beacon between Mispa and
Sen, in remembrance of the defeat they had over the Philistines.
"Ebenhaëzer" can be translated as "the Lord has helped us thus
far" or “the Lord has helped us up to here” (1 Samuel 7:12). In
Ebenhaëzer’s early days, the local Dutch Reformed Mission Church was the
cornerstone of the community.

Centuries later, it was interpreted that Ebenezer Scrooge
in Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”was not
living up to the true definition of his name (the true potential his Creator
initially intended), until he received supernatural intervention that caused
him to have a change of heart and, thus, enabled him to be a financial “Stone
of Help” to those around him.

Ebenezer
Scrooge

She retained this name until
1964 when she was renamed “Butsekop”, meaning “Sperm whale” in Frisian, due to
the whale’s blunt head.She was again
re-named(dutch for lady) Harmke and
also Geertruida in 1985 & 1988 respectively, after family members.Her name was restored to her by her current
owners.

Inland Traders Link

The Inland Traders

The Binnenvaart (Inland Trader) Skipper & His Family

Ebenhaëzer was registered for binnenvaart in 1904.At the turn of the century there was a
bewildering range of binnenvaart (inland trade) ship types.However, very simply put, the vast majority
of the true inland freight ships sprang from one of two very old hull forms.These were the tjalk and the aak.Ebenhaëzer is a tjalk.By the end of the nineteenth century, the
tjalk was the most common of all the Dutch binnenvaart ships. The change from
wooden to iron construction saw little appreciable change in the tjalk form.The use of metal rolling techniques allowed
a curved bilge to be introduced, replacing the harder chine previously seen in
wooden construction, but otherwise the design remained unaltered.Although the tjalk shares many features with
other binnenvaart ships, they can be recognized primarily by their distinctive
hull form.Tjalken were built to carry
cargo, as much cargo as possible and so they are recognizable by the
rectangular shape of the hull.The
curved "voorsteven" (stem), which also leads to them sometimes
being referred to as "Kromstevens", or bent stems and the
inward turning "boeisel" (the upper portion of the hull), are
all indicative of the tjalk hull form.A heavy iron band, the "berghout", is carried all
around the hull for strength and to act as a rubbing strake.The bottom is flat with no keel or keelson
and has a noticeably rounded bilge.The
wooden rudder is very large and mounted on the stern post on conventional
gudgeons and pintles.

All tjalken and aken were originally fitted with a zwaard
(lee board) on each side.These were of
wooden construction and had a subtle airfoil form.They were fan shaped, distinguishing them easily from the deep
water craft whose zwaarden were long and thin.The sailing rig consisted of a loose footed gaff grootzeil (main
sail) on a heavy boom, a small fok (staysail), self tacking on a horse
just forward of the mast and one or more kluivers (jibs), carried on a kluiverboom
(bowsprit).The use of ketch rig and
top sails originally occurred only on the larger tjalken engaged in the coastal
trade and the larger Rijnaken.The
typical length was between 15 to 25 metres and the weight from 20 to 150
tons.The length to beam ratio was
normally in the order of 4-5 to1.

Zwaard (Lee Board)Lee Board Functionality

During the nineteenth century, the vast majority of
binnenvaart tjalk skippers owned their own ships and arranged their own
cargo.They were both merchants and
sailors and well respected in their home town.The cargo these merchant-sailors carried was diverse and reflected in
the evolution of the ships that carried it.Peat, hay, reeds, potatoes, cheese, sugar beet, manure, all generated
differing techniques of carriage and slightly different ships.By the end of the century the growth of
"big business" meant many skippers were being forced to relinquish
their role as merchants and to put this function in the hands of a middle-man.The skippers resented this departure from
their traditional freedom and as the power of the land based merchants grew
they saw their own influence waning.This continued in spite of attempts by the skippers to avoid
exploitation and the effects are still felt by today’s binnenvaart fleet.

In the latter part of the nineteenth century, canals and
rivers still formed the backbone of the Netherlands inland transport
system.The railways were spreading,
but theirs was still a secondary role.Wherever the lines crossed a canal, or small river that had recognized
navigational use, it was necessary to construct a movable bridge to allow free
flow of water traffic.When a railway
line crossed a wide waterway, such as the Rhine, it was necessary to construct
a fixed bridge.A lifting, or swing
bridge, would have been technically difficult, as well as expensive to
construct.In these cases, the railway
companies paid for those ships using the waterway and lacking a mast lowering
facility, to have their ships converted.The men who looked after the thousands of bridges, road and rail and
also the sluices, played an important part in keeping the trade moving.The skippers paid for every bridge, or
sluice, that had to be opened.This
provided the funds to maintain the canal system.The general rule was, that a bridge or sluice
"watcher", as they were called, would be on duty from one hour before
sunrise, to one hour after.It was not
forbidden to use the canals at night, but the skipper had to stop sometime and
generally night travelling was not done. When it was attempted, perhaps as a
skipper wanted to get an early start, the rule was that it would cost ten
cents, this was four times greater than the day fee.Even then there was no guarantee that a man would get out of bed
for ten cents!The bridges and sluices
were all manually operated and this could mean a long hard day.However, the watcher was generally well paid
and a house normally went with the job.Often a cafe would grow up at these sites and the skippers would try to
reach these points before nightfall.Here
they could meet friends, exchange news and stories and, if the wind was foul,
arrange for a man and horse to tow him on his way.This job was often undertaken by the farmers who owned the land
beside the canal.They would farm with
"one eye on the canal" and then provide a horse to tow the barge
through their "territory".If
the skipper was lucky he would soon find another tow, but if not, it was up to
him and his family to provide the power. It was that or wait for the wind.Although the work was hard, so too were most
occupations for the non city dweller.Although some merchants in the cities owned several ships and employed
regular crews, most ships were owned by their skipper and operated from the
towns and villages of the countryside.At the end of the nineteenth century, people did not, by and large,
travel very far outside their home town.Those that did travel were looked up to and engendered with a certain
mystique.In Drente, for example, the
skippers of the small barges that carried turf, had a higher status than a
farmer, but the skippers who sailed the bigger craft, across the Zuiderzee to
Amsterdam, were seen as real seamen and looked up to even further.They were seen as real gentlemen and addressed
as "Sir".

The Zuiderzee was a physical and social barrier to the
people who lived to the east of it.To
the skippers it represented a real challenge and a whole new set of techniques
and equipment were needed to cross it safely.The water authorities provided warehouses on its shores, where the
skippers could store the heavier sails, hatch clothes and ground tackle, needed
for this "overseas" trip.When they had brought their ships successfully to Amsterdam, each group
of skippers, from similar areas and towns, had their own meeting places, where
they felt secure.The Drentse skippers
stayed in the "Haarlemmerstraat" and those from Hoogeveen at
the cafe "De Ramskooi".On their return to the eastern shores of the Zuiderzee, they would
exchange their heavy sea going gear once more and return to their
families.They made a habit of staying
away no longer than three weeks and would not sail at all at Christmas and
Easter.They were a religious people
anyway, but the skippers in particular were rather pragmatically more so, they
experienced the forces of nature regularly and were aware of their own
vulnerability.

The skipper of a tjalk or aak, was nearly always himself
the son of a skipper, who had, in turn, married a skipper's daughter.This intense family involvement in the
binnenvaart produced strong ties and loyalties.In times of hardship, or personal difficulties, these people
would "close ranks" to protect their own.These were an astute group of people, as good at conducting
business as at sailing ships.They were
aware of the advantages that a good education could bring and although school
was not yet compulsory, often went to great lengths to ensure that their
children attended school as regularly as possible.This meant that a skipper's son, at the age of fifteen or
sixteen, would already have a good academic, commercial and practical
background.A son would learn his trade
from his father, working as a deck hand on the family craft until he was able
enough to be employed on another ship.When he had saved sufficient funds, he could approach his parents and
some of his many relatives for loans to enable him to buy his own ship.A ship that was for sale would often
discretely display a handful of twisted straw pushed through the hook at the
outboard end of the tiller.Another
skipper would know what this sign meant but most other observers would remain
in ignorance.The inboard end of the
tiller might proudly display a handgrip in the form of a barrel, this traditionally
meant that the ship was paid for and the sole property of the skipper.The young owner was not seen as a
"real" skipper however, until he employed a knecht (deck hand).When he got married, his wife would live on
his ship with him and they would raise a family on board together.The skipper's wife was often mother to all
on board, the skipper, the deck hand and the children.She would cook for all, in the tiny confines
of the roef or paviljoen(living space), all the time listening for the
sound of a child falling overboard, or the skipper and hand arguing.It was her job to mediate and calm things
down with a cup of coffee.Sometimes,
the skipper, his family and the deck hand, would all live together, but often
the hand was expected to make a bed for himself in the forecastle.In the larger ships he would even have his
own stove.Generally though, living was
cramped, a tjalk made its money from carrying cargo, not people.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the
Dutch binnenvaart fleet expanded more quickly than any other form of maritime
activity.Dutch binnenvaart skippers
sailed to all accessible parts of Europe.It may justly be said that through their hard work and skill they formed
the backbone of the Dutch economy.

Rresearch Linkesearch Link

Research

Identification of Dutch
Barges

Meetbrief

The "meetbrief" is the registration book
belonging to an individual vessel.Each
ship was given a unique number on initial registration and this number, which
is also the "meetbrief nummer" stayed with the ship for life.On older ships, the date of initial
registration as given in the meetbrief is not necessarily the same as the
launching date.Certainly many ships
trading in the latter part of the nineteenth century were not registered on the
"modern" system until the later part of the 1920’s.

For registration purposes, the 11 provinces making up the
Netherlands at the beginning of this century were split into three
"metingsdistricts".Rotterdam, signified by the letter R, covered the provinces, of Limburg,
Noord Brabant, Zeeland and that part of Zuid-Holland below a line joining the
cities of Leiden and Utrecht.Amsterdam, signified by the letter A, covered the areas of Zuid-Holland
above a line joining the cities of Leiden and Utrecht, and the provinces of
Noord-Holland, Utrecht and Gelderland.Groningen, signified by the letter G, covered the provinces of
Groningen, Friesland, Drente and Overijsel.

A vessel that had permanent residence, or intended to
trade in any of these areas, was measured and registered by the
"ijkantoor", the local weights and measures department.In each of the three metingsdistricts there
were many separate "kadasters", or registration offices situated in
the main towns of the region.These
offices would handle the three separate registration and measuring procedures.

1) IJKMERK

2) TEBOEKSTELLINGNUMMER

3) METINGSMERK

1)IJkmerk

The "ijker" was the official weights and
measures officer, he was responsible for calculating the acceptable loading
capacity of a ship trading in a pre-defined area. When the calculations were
complete he also issued a number, the "ijkmerk", which was stamped
into the ship’s side.The location of
this number is detailed very precisely in the meetbrief (paragraph 28), it
appears twice on each side of the ship at bow and stern.A horizontal line drawn between the two
numbers corresponds with the maximum loaded waterline in fresh water.Every time a ship moved into a different
trading area it was required to be re-measured.The maximum allowable waterline in sheltered canals was markedly
different to that deemed safe in exposed or open waters.

2)Teboekstellingnummer

When the measuring and marking was complete, they would
issue another unique number, signifying when and where the registration was
done.This number, the
"teboekstellingnummer", is in four parts.Eg.210 B AMST 1927.In this example the numbers simply mean
that it was the 210th ship registered in that year.The B is very important.It means Binnenvaart, or inland trade.A ship trading on coastal routes or in the Baltic for example, had to be
strongly built to a higher specification and these ships would have a Z for
Zeevaart as part of their teboekstellingnummer.AMST of course means the registration office was in
Amsterdam.These letters generally take
the form of the first four or so letters of the town in question. ZWOL for
Zwolle, APPING for Appingedam, DEV for Deventer, LEID for Leiden, UTR for
Utrecht, ARNH for Arnhem, etc.The last
four numbers signify the year the number was issued.The location of the teboekstellingnummer is given in the
meetbrief (above).

3)Metingsmerk

After measurement the meetbriefwas issued.At the same time a number was assigned to
the vessel.This became the
meetbriefnummer and also the ship number, the "metingsmerk", or
"brandmerk".It consisted of
the signifying letter of the area, the letter "N" denoting
Netherlands and a unique number.This
number appeared in the form of a brass plate riveted to the ship’s side.However time showed that these plates tended
to drop off due to wear and tear and later ships had the number stamped into
the fabric of the hull and also into the superstructure. The location of the
number is given in the meetbrief.

Flag of Friesland

Officially, the registration office had to be notified of
any change of trading area; change of ownership; change of name of ship; or any
substantial alteration to the ship such as lengthening, conversion to motor, or
change of existing motor.The ship
could then be re-measured if appropriate and the meetbrief altered
accordingly.Every change in the meetbrief,
which in any case had to be renewed every fifteen years, cost hard earned
money.The more prosperous skippers and
those owners with large fleets tended to be scrupulous about such things, but
the thousands of one-ship-skippers couldn’t afford to be so precise,
unfortunately leading to gaps in documentation and problems for the
researcher.However, if it is possible
to locate the metingsnummer, or better still a teboekstellingnummer, by
contacting the "Scheepskadaster" in the relevant town it is often
possible to unearth more of the history of the ship.

Ebenhaëzer Approaching Tower Bridge, London

The documentation sourced on Ebenhaëzer was partially in
old Dutch and it was difficult to translate.There is a collection of documents from various stages and eventually in
2005, a Dutch friend of the owner of the Lemsteraak “Schollevaer” (also based
in Ireland), was to come sailing on Ebenhaëzer on Lough Ree.He had been Secretary of the SSRP (Stichting
Stamboek Ronde en Platbodemjachten) which is the Corporation/Foundation for the
Documentation of Round and Flat Bottom Yachts, in the Netherlands and has
considerable knowledge of Dutch vessels and sailing of same.He was to uncover the ownership of
Ebenhaëzer, and in doing so, has been liaising with the four owners of the ship
in the last 43 years.

As mentioned above, the first identifying number of a
ship was the "meetbrief" number, given when she was initially
measured.The record number of this
measurement, being S 639 N in Ebenhaëzer’s case.However, much confusion was to follow, as
the length overall was stated in later documentation at 9ft longer against her
actual length!It was therefore
initially feared that the documentation was incorrect.

For most of the first half of the 1900s Wieberen and
Antje Paauw were declared to be the owners of the Dutch iron ship with
deckhouse “Ebenhaëzer”, sailing the inland waterways.Measurement, according to her meetbrief, was recorded in the
register of the District of Sneek with the number 639 N, 39,792 tons.Both of these markings are to be found on
the hull (meetbrief number and tonnage).According to the documentation, the measurement took place in Sneek in
1905.

In 1938 the then current owner appears to have had her
extended to 19,81 m. in Lemmer at the shipyard of the De Boer brothers.There are no first hand documents about the
extension but Mr Vos (researcher) contacted the supervisor of the small museum
in Lemmer where the shipyard records of the De Boer brothers are kept.She advised him that she had records of this
from 1938.

In 1938 Mr Pauw appears to have had her extended to 19,81
meters, probably in Lemmer at the shipyard of the de Boer brothers.Mr Vos contacted the supervisor of the small
museum in Lemmer, where the records of this shipyard are kept, and went through
the period 1930-1940, but he could not find any indication of this extension.

Confirmation is to be found in a later document, being
the record of the measurement in 1938.It states that former measurements took place in Sneek, on the 8th
of March 1905, registration number 639 [S 639 N) and in Meppel on the 11Th
of February 1932, number 589 [MP 589 N],which is also to be
found on the hull.Whether she
was at her longer or shorter length at the 1932 measuring, is as yet unclear,
as those particular registers were sent to a museum in Rotterdam and have not
yet been traced (in other words it will confirm if the hull extension took
place between 1932-38).This
information will confirm whether or not in 1938 she was 19,81m long and had a
deadweight capacity of 49,686 tons.There is also a “metingsmerk”[G
4955 N].This was the number given
after the re-measuring in Lemmer in August 1938.The office where the measuring register was kept, was in
Groningen (G), while the measurement took place in Lemmer, presumably following
extension of the hull.

Further documentation shows a request for
“teboekstelling” in 1954 by Mr Pieter Zuidema, the new owner of that time.She was still 49,686 tons by then and the
“teboekstellingsnumber” was 387, [387 B Leeuw 1954], which is to be
found on port stern gunwale.She
was still registered for inland trade (Binnenvaart), at this point.

The collective documents confirm that during the war
years (1938) “Ebenhaëzer”was extended
by three metres.Now the vessel has
been shortened again, so it is concluded that she must have been shortened to
her original length later than 1964 because in the documentation of that year,
the then owner Mr De Jong declared that she still measured 49,686 tons when he
bought her that year.There is also a
picture of her in 1962 at her longer length below (provided by J de Jong).She is the long orange and black vessel,
then owned by Mr Pieter Zuidema.His
parents lived in the tjalk alongside “Ebenhaëzer”.The picture was used as a local postcard.It is evident that the ship is still 19.8m
LOA.Mr De Jong purchased her having
viewed her in the above setting.

Ebenhaëzer Moored at Leeuwarden between
1962-1964

History Link

History

History of Ebenhaëzer

Ebenhaëzer was purchased by
her current owner under the name of Geertruida, having been built by Croles of
IJlst (near Sneek, Friesland) in 1904.Below is a picture of the Croles shipyard in IJlst and of J.J. Croles
who was the owner of the shipyard in until his death in 1900.Co-incidentally, it turned out that the
shipyard had been located no more than a 5 minutes drive from our researcher’s
home (Mr Tom Vos).The yard was
discontinued before WW II.In the
Maritime Museum he learned that Mr J.J. Croles Jnr, who was the intended successor
to the shipbuilder who had died in 1900, had no ambition for shipbuilding; he
qualified as a lawyer in 1898 and later became a politician, never having had
anything to do with the ship yard.The
widow continued the business after 1900 with help of a foreman as this was the
only way of earning a living for herself.She died in 1918 and the yard was sold on, though it ceased business
somewhat later – possibly in the 1930s.

Croles Shipyard in IJlst.Above is
JJ Croles, owner of the shipyard who died shortly before start of

construction (his widow continued to run the shipyard)

The barge originally was solely a sailing vessel.A.B. Meijer, Doen Fennema, and Wieberen
& Antje Paauw would have used her for the transport of bulk cargo, in a
completely rural society:manure,
mould, peat, coal, hay, straw, reed, potatoes, sugar beet, building material
etc.Mainly, she would have operated in
Friesland.In the early 1900s in
Friesland there were hardly any paved roads.Nearly all traffic went over water, along the canals and lakes, sailing,
rowing, poling or towing along the banks. Many canals and all the lakes
of course, were so wide that sailing was the main means of propulsion
used.

Before the war years (1938 or sooner), Wiberen Paauw had
her lengthened by 3 metres.Those were
years of economical depression – most people were very poor, freightages were
low and probably it was done to enable extra capacity per delivery, to make it
more financially viable.In 1941 the
registration as a cargo vessel ended, probably because Wieberen Paauw had
died.Antje (his sister) continued to
live on the barge until 1950.

In 1950 Mr Pieter Zuidema bought her.During his ownership, he de-rigged her
and fitted an engine.He re-registered
and used the barge for cargo transport until 1964.However, it is believed that she may have been lying idle for one
or two of these years in Leeuwarden by 1964.Mr Zuidema moved (possibly retired) to The Hague in 1964. It was from Leeuwarden in 1964 that
that Mr Jan de Jong purchased the ship and from that point, she has been used
for pleasure, like many other similar barges in the Netherlands.

Ebenhaëzer in Leeuwarden, 1962

In the picture above, Ebenhaëzer is the third vessel from
the left.She had been de-rigged for a
period at that point (she is the one with the dark stern and a small dinghy on
her starboard side).She was then owned
by Mr Pieter Zuidema and was at her longer length.This picture was used as an illustration on a calendar at the
time (Photo: Provided by Jan de Jong).

Mr De Jong advises that Mr Zuidema had installed a
Bernhard engine of 12 hp which was still in her when Mr De Jong purchased her
in 1964.Similarly to the Bolinder
single stroke engines used by Canal Boats (barges) in Ireland, it was started
by flywheel.The Bernhard was primed
with petrol.When running the fuel was
changed to paraffin oil.It was not
possible to put it into reverse directly: the engine was paused and started
again after turning the clutch.As the
engine had been placed close to the after bulkhead of the hold, this operation
took considerable effort, so that moving the barge was not very convenient and
required planning. Mr De Jong was also much taller than Mr Zuidema so he
had to kneel to spin the flywheel.As a
result, he replaced the Bernhard with a Ford A car engine and later with a
Mercedes OM 636 diesel.

He set about re-shortening and re-rigging Ebenhaëzer,
which he renamed to Butsekop and later set about building her a new
‘deckhouse’.Initially, when the barge
had been restored to her former length in Terhorne, he brought her home to
Gorredijk and removed the deckhouse himself.He constructed the seats and the platform under the tiller (cockpit)
using steel plates.He had plenty at
his disposal as a manager of a Milk Can Factory, for which they were the basic
material.Those plates were only 1.5 mm
thick but were covered in teak (this remains unchanged).

Re-shortened & Re-rigged 19641964
Painted Green

He also built a temporary wooden deckhouse with more
headroom to create more space in the “kuip” , until it was replaced by the
current steel structure.The picture
below shows Ebenhaëzer in Stavoren, a small town in the South West of
Friesland.She is at the Van der Werff
shipyard where the superstructure work was done.The yard was established in 1800.Mr De Jong consulted a professional nautical architect to design
the cabin (these 3 pictures are from the log of J. de Jong).

1965,Current
Steel Cabin Construction

In 1985 Mr De Jong sold “Ebenhaëzer”, then “Butsekop”, to
Mr Dirk Piersma in Dokkum.Mr Piersma
maintained the name “Butsekop” for a few years and then changed it into “Vrouwe
Harmke” .

Mr Piersma knew a fellow townsman in the wastepaper
business who owned a truck and was selling his business, having retired early
in the 1980s.Mr Piersma started
negotiation about the truck’s disused DAF 575 engine (Ebenhaëzer’s current
engine) during a cold spell in winter 1985/’86 and started negotiation on the
engine in a temperature of about minus 10°C!Some fuel and a loaded battery were organised and when turning the key
the engine started coughing, banging and expelling black smoke, but then it ran
smoothly and that gave Mr Piersma sufficient trust in it, so he bought and
replaced the Mercedes with it.

Moored in the Centre of Dokkum during the 11
City Skating Race in Winter 1987 (Photo: D Piersma)

The above picture during Mr Piersma’s ownership, is of
Ebenhaëzer moored in the centre of Dokkum during the “11-cities skating race”
in February 1987.It is unique in that
it is the most famous outdoor skating event in the world.They call at every city of Friesland, being
11 all together, during a skating match (and tour for amateurs) of 220
kilometres.It can only be organised
when winter is very severe and the ice is thick enough to carry 20,000 people, which
seldom occurs, since the last ten or twenty years.Notice the crowd of visitors on both sides of the canal.The five photos below are also provided from
the log of Mr Piersma.

1980Sailing on a Frisian Lake

Foredeck and
Zetteboord 19851985

Illuminated on the Canal in Centre of Dokkum

She was still named “Vrouwe Harmke”in 1988 when sold to Mr Geiko Reder who
re-named her Geertruida, after a family member.A copy of this contract of sale was obtained and added to the collection
of documents.Mr Reder sold her on to
her current owner, Rachel Hanna (then Leech) 4 years later in 1992, via a
broker, having been viewed in Leeuwarden and she is still fondly referred to as
“Gertie”, short for Geertruida.In
fact the sale was not finally completed until early 1993, when she travelled by
water to the Thames (via Netherlands, Belgium, France and across the English
Channel up the Thames, where she was to be based for some years.

The ship then cruised to Ireland in 2000.She travelled back from the East coast of England where she was having works completed (in
Faversham, Kent).She cast-off Maldon
on the River Blackwater (Essex), via the Thames, Kennet & Avon Canal, River
Avon, Bristol Channel, Welsh coast (Milford Haven), St Georges Channel, Dunmore
East (Waterford – SE Coast of Ireland), River Barrow, Grand Canal and finally
to her owner’s family home at Abbey House, Athlone, on the River Shannon where
she is now based.

During her
current ownership she's been used for residential, cruising and sailing
purposes (including occasional mixed/classic fleet racing).She cruised the British waterways for many
years (costal, canals & rivers).She also attended some of the traditional sail events such as Thames
Sailing Barge Matches on the Thames Estuary (normally raced on Kentish and
Essex coastlines).One of these
events, the Swale Match, also has classes for fishing Smacks, Bawleys and other
traditional craft - around the Isle of Sheppey, in which she raced on a few
occasions.

She has also
cruised all of the various navigable Irish and Northern Irish inland waterways
(canals, rivers, lakes), Shannon & Suir estuaries and Dublin
coastline.During some of her 2005
travels, she visited the Tall Ships Race in Waterford, taking the opportunity
to cruise the 3.